Progress Report

I spent some time this weekend working on the Train Stop, since a couple of people asked about it recently. The model is finished, it has a rough texture, and now, the script finally works.

Trainz Script is even more painful than making textures. It has a hundred different ways to do similar things. You have to figure out which way is the right one for your situation, and despite one method name being similar to another (ie: inferring that they are part of the same method family) they work in completely different ways!.

Take SetMeshAnimationState() for example. I was alternating between that and SetFXAnimationState() since I was not sure which was the right one to use in my situation. Both come from the MeshObject class, but they work in slightly different ways. While SetMeshAnimationState plays through the whole animation once, either forward or in reverse (which is what I wanted), SetFXAnimationState starts or stops the animation loop (which I didnt want). I originally had the animation set up as an effect, but my example script (grabbed from the forums) was using SetMeshAnimationState. Naturally this combination wasnt working. When I finally figured out I needed the FX version of the method for an effect, the animation looped (not what I had in mind). I ended up having to reconfigure the model, in order to use the SetMeshAnimationState method, which is the one I wanted to use all along.

I spent many hours figuring that out, and now finally have it working properly.

A few final steps remain before its ready for the DLS. Im dying to get my green "DLS Contributor" flag, but before I can upload it I have to tweak the model to move its origin slightly, tidy up the script to remove a few unused functions, and redo the textures.

Trainz seems to always render the textures lighter than they really are, meaning that you have to make your textures darker for them to look right. Being slightly colourblind, Im already battling with getting the textures to look right, and on top of that I have to make them look too dark in Gimp. Its never easy.

At least its one step closer to the DLS now.

No real improvements on the Tangara this week. Im three file versions ahead of where I was last week, but thats not really much of a change. The Buffer model still needs finishing, although Im already using it in a couple of routes. That shouldnt take long. I'll probably get to that after I release the Train Stop. Hopefully by the time its ready, the current problems with uploads being rejected for no apparent reason, will be fixed.